Fear No EvilTemperamentally and intellectually, Natan Sharansky is a man very much like many of us—which makes this account of his arrest on political grounds, his trial, and ten years' imprisonment in the Orwellian universe of the Soviet gulag particularly vivid and resonant. Since Fear No Evil was originally published in 1988, the Soviet government that imprisoned Sharansky has collapsed. Sharansky has become an important national leader in Israel—and serves as Israel's diplomatic liaison to the former Soviet Union! New York Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Serge Schmemann reflects on those monumental events, and on Sharansky's extraordinary life in the decades since his arrest, in a new introduction to this edition. But the truths Sharansky learned in his jail cell and sets forth in this book have timeless importance so long as rulers anywhere on earth still supress their own peoples. For anyone with an interest in human rights—and anyone with an appreciation for the resilience of the human spirit—he illuminates the weapons with which the powerless can humble the powerful: physical courage, an untiring sense of humor, a bountiful imagination, and the conviction that "Nothing they do can humiliate me. I alone can humiliate myself." |
Contents
| 3 | |
5 | 59 |
Escape | 76 |
The Lawyer | 170 |
The Trial | 183 |
The Verdict | 208 |
BOOK | 225 |
The World of the Gulag | 227 |
Friends and Companions | 318 |
Hunger Strike | 330 |
The Interconnection of Souls | 349 |
The Call of the Shofar | 372 |
Aliyah | 394 |
Home | 412 |
Afterword by Serge Schmemann | 419 |
Acknowledgments | 428 |
The Marathon Begins | 243 |
Fear No Evil | 258 |
Camp | 271 |
My Fellow Prisoners | 286 |
Oh Hot Water | 299 |
Index | 430 |
Enemies and Friends | 431 |
II | 437 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
activists aliyah Anatoly Borisovich Andrei Sakharov arrest arrived asked Avital Avital's began brought camp prison cell mate Chernysh Chistopol confiscated criminals defend Derbent dissidents door everything feeling felt finally friends gave guard Gulag Hanukkah heard hunger strike interrogation investigation Israel Izvestia Jewish Jews judge KGB's knew later learned Lefortovo Lefortovo Prison Lenya Leonid letter Lipavsky lists of refuseniks looked Mama meeting Meilanov months Moscow Natan Sharansky never once Osin Perm political Poresh procurator Psalm Psalm book punishment cell question quickly received refused refuseniks regime release replied returned Romanov Russian Sakharov secret sentence Sharansky smile Solonchenko Solonin soon Soviet Union stopped struggle suddenly talk tell testimony things thought Timofeev tion told took Toth trial tried Tsypin turned USSR Victoras Volodin wife words wrote Yosef zeks Zionist zone
Popular passages
Page 7 - Agitation or propaganda carried on for the purpose of subverting or weakening Soviet authority...
Page 369 - ... outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit.
Page xxiii - Treason, that is, an act intentionally committed by a citizen of the USSR to the detriment of the state independence, the territorial inviolability or the military might of the USSR: going over to the side of the enemy, espionage, transmission of a state or military secret to a foreign state, flight abroad or refusal to return from abroad to the USSR, rendering aid to a foreign state in carrying on hostile activity against the USSR...
Page xxiii - ... deprivation of freedom for a term of six months to seven years, with or without additional exile for a term of two to five years, or by exile for a term of two to five years
Page 369 - The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.
Page 8 - I repeated this principle over and over until it was part of me: Nothing they do can humiliate me. I alone can humiliate myself.
Page 405 - Hear, O Lord, and have mercy on me; O Lord, be my help!" You turned my lament into dancing You undid my sackcloth and girded me with joy That my whole being may sing hymns to You endlessly; 0 Lord my God, I will praise you forever.
Page 303 - ... Colonel Nikolai Osin, who had been running the camp since it went up in 1972. Shcharansky, Bukovsky, Marchenko, Stus, Orlov, Timofeyev: they all knew Osin. Shcharansky, especially, remembered his eyes, the dull gleam in the ruddy meat of his face. "Osin was an enormous, flabby man," Shcharansky wrote, "with small eyes and puffy eyelids, who seemed to have long ago lost interest in everything but food. . . . But he was a master of intrigue who had successfully overtaken many of his colleagues...